


Life As A Tangent

by zeffyamethyst



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Second person POV, Yoshi just might be the exception though, best friends (sometimes) make the best boyfriends, bros before many many many hos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:25:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeffyamethyst/pseuds/zeffyamethyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is like the Spanish Inquisition, inevitable and unexpected. </p><p>(And so is Scott Yoshida)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life As A Tangent

You’ve never regretted being friends with Yoshi. 

Not even when he turns up under your window in the middle of the night to kidnap you for the day. You end up missing school, tutoring, and dinner. Instead, you spend the day at the beach, eating ice cream, and fish and chips, watching the sun rise and the sun set.

When you get back, late enough that your father’s gone to bed already, your mother is waiting at the dining room table. She demands to know what on God’s green earth is so important, and you refuse to tell her. Both because Yoshi had asked and because you don’t think you could find the words to describe the look on Yoshi’s face when he said, “they told us there’s nothing else they can do.” So your mother grounds you for the week.

Two month later, you’re at the funeral, where Yoshi looks like he’s about to throw up all over his father’s expensive shoes, so _you_ kidnap _him_. It’s an old cemetery and the stone sarcophagi, or whatever they’re called, make a good table. The two of you spend the afternoon playing poker, go fish, and snap, which is a little hard when the deck is missing ten of spades. You win and Yoshi accuses you of cheating.

At the wake, Yoshi’s father glares at you and your mother rolls her eyes, but you don’t regret a thing.

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

It’s a Friday afternoon and you’re spending it stuck inside the cleaning closet. 

You don’t even know what you did to piss them off today. Wear the wrong coloured shirt? The wrong length of pants? Did they ever need a reason?

The cleaning closet is tucked into a little space between the gym and the empty guidance counsellor’s office. No one is going to hear you or stumble over you by accident. All you can do is wait.

You flip over the bucket and sit down with a sigh. At least there’s a light in here, and your backpack too. And nine brooms, which seems to be quite a lot even for a school this big. You wait a few more minutes, kick the door a couple of times just in case, but the only response is one of the brooms falling down. 

Yeah, it’s going to be a long wait so you do what anyone would and pull out your homework.

You’re on the second to last question when the door unlocks. “Cam, you decent?” Yoshi yells and barges in before you can answer. 

“How?” is all you can say because you weren’t supposed to meet Yoshi until after dinner.

Yoshi shrugs. “Saw the douchebags laughing about something so I figured I should check on you.”

And this, this right here, is why you call Yoshi your best friend.

Tomorrow, Yoshi will get suspended for fighting on school grounds. Tomorrow, he’ll have bruises all over his face and his knuckles will be bloodied. And when you ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, he’ll smile at you and say, “it was worth it.”

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

Charlotte terrifies you.

Charlotte terrifies any man with an emotional attachment to his balls. Even Yoshi is wary around her and he's supposed to be her older, wiser brother. 

But when she calls you at eight o’clock on a Wednesday night, you’re too worried to be scared. “What's happened?” you demand as soon as you pick up. You’re expecting her to say something like alcohol poisoning or syphilis or broken penis. These are just a few of the things that you, as Yoshi’s best friend, have to worry about. 

Charlotte is uncharacteristically quiet on the other end. Your brain starts coming up with theories like car accident and overdose, so when Charlotte says, “Dad and Yoshi are fighting,” you spend a whole five seconds restraining the urge to yell at her.

“Jeez, Char, I thought it was something serious,” you say when you can speak again. Yoshi and his dad fight a lot, it’s not exactly news. They fight about his grades, his music, his future, his partying. 

“It _is_ serious,” Charlotte snaps. “I’m calling just in case, okay?”

Turns out, she had the right idea. Twenty minutes after her call, you answer the doorbell and Yoshi’s standing there, his face so tight with anger it’s almost impossible to see the lost look in his eyes. “He kicked me out,” Yoshi says, voice small.

You’re not a violent person. You don’t get into fights. You wouldn’t even dream of hurting someone in real life - video games are a different matter. But right now, there’s nothing you would like better than to be very, very violent at Yoshi’s father. 

“Come on,” you say, grabbing him by the arm, “mom made lasagne.”

Probably, your puny hands will do nothing to Mister Yoshida, but they’re going to do an amazing job of keeping Yoshi together. That’s just how you roll.

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

Yoshi’s parties are always an event and they never end well. Ever. Not since the first one where you ended up with more cake in your hair than your mouth. Yet, every year on July twelfth, you turn up no matter what else is happening in your life, and every morning after, you wake up on Yoshi’s bed with him snoring into your ears. 

This year is no different.

At least this time you were smart enough to close the blinds last night. There’s a soft lump digging into the small of your back, your neck is twisted in a weird angle and Yoshi sprawls over you like an affectionate blanket. A blanket that smells of pure alcohol and breaths like a bellow. He’s half-naked, and his hair sticks to your cheek in wet clumps and you really wish you couldn’t remember what happened.

You twist around to take a look at the alarm clock and it blinks its damning numbers at you. Yeah, you won’t be going in to work today. 

Always messing with your life, you think grumpily but your hand combs through his hair, smoothing it down, working out the knots and just like that you slip back into sleep.

The last thing you remember is Yoshi burying his face against your neck. 

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

There are days you wish you hadn’t given Yoshi the key to your place. 

“Mornin,” you hear when you step out of the bedroom. Yoshi looks comfortable in front of the TV in just his boxers, balancing a cereal bowl on his knees as he flips through the channels. 

You think about asking if he’d spent the night, if he heard you and Steve, but quite frankly, you’re scared that he might actually answer. “Make yourself comfortable?” you say instead, sarcastically.

But sarcasm, like a lot of other verbal cues, goes flying over Yoshi’s head. “You’re out of coco-pops,” he mumbles around the spoon. 

That’s fine; you only buy them because he loves them anyway. “Thought you had a date last night?” you ask, ruffling his hair as you walk by. It was a blind date, sixth one of the month, set up by Yoshi’s aunts. 

“Ditched him halfway through,” Yoshi explains, waving at Steve, who waves back as he heads for the bathroom. Steve never seems to mind Yoshi’s random appearances, which just makes you wonder if he isn’t secretly an exhibitionist.

You start the coffee machine , stifling a yawn. “What was wrong with this one?” 

Yoshi shrugs, rolls his eyes, and says, “so my lease is nearly up, wanna help me find a place?”

You can catch a clue, especially when it’s as big as basketball. “Around where you live now?” you ask, like Yoshi hasn’t just stonewalled you. He’ll tell you sooner or later.

“I was thinking around here, actually.”

That’ll be nice, you think. Then you won’t have to make a trip to the other side of the city just to get back your x-box, and games, and clothes. “I know a couple of places.”

“Why don’t you move in with Cam?” Steve suggests as he walks back in. He kisses you on the cheek, salutes Yoshi, and reaches for his coffee. 

“Move in with Cam?” Yoshi repeats, the heaped spoon halfway to his mouth.

The idea grabs you by the shoulders and shakes your mouth into saying, “Yeah, why not? You can have the storage room.”

And just like that, you and Yoshi are flatmates. Well, not just like that because Yoshi sleeps with the landlady and landlord, and you wonder, very briefly, if you could swing a discount by pimping out Yoshi. This is not the last time that thought will cross your mind

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

Over the years, mainly by firsthand experience, you’ve learned that Yoshi is like the Spanish Inquisition. No one ever expects them. 

“What’re you doing here?” you demand when you get back home from a spectacularly shitty day to find Yoshi on the couch, looking like the love child of a hobo and a bum in his holey shirt and faded boxers. 

He looks at you like you’re the weird one. “Um, Doctor Who night? We're starting on the fifth doctor, remember?” he says, slowly and carefully. 

“What about Joe?” Joe is Yoshi’s maybe-boyfriend-but-definitely-fuck-buddy. He’s nice, if a bit possessive, which can in no way end well but Yoshi seems to be enjoying it anyway. For now. 

“He’ll survive,” Yoshi says with a shrug. You’re not sure if he will though when Joe finds out that he’s spent the only day off he’s had in weeks with you. 

But before you can say anything else. Before you can try to be the rational one, again, Yoshi switches channels and the Doctor Who theme song starts. “Pizza,” Yoshi says, pushing over a box of steaming, salty, cheesy goodness. 

And let’s be honest, you’ve never been able to resist pizza, Doctor Who, or Yoshi, never mind the combination of all three. Much like the Spanish Inquisition, it’s just easier to give in.

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

Charlotte has a boyfriend. This is somewhat difficult for you to wrap your head around since 1) this is _Charlotte_ and 2) you always thought Charlotte was a lesbian. Something about the intense pleasure she took in ruthlessly crushing the testicles of her fellow male law students. Not to mention the homoerotic friendship she had going with that girl, Cee, back in highschool.

But that was the Yoshidas, breaking rules and heteronormativity the way some people breathed. 

How any of this concerns you though, you still don’t know. 

The day before yesterday, Yoshi had run into your room, waved his mobile in your face and said, in the most terrified voice you’ve ever heard from him, “she’s bringing him over. Jesus Christ on a toaster, she’s bringing him for dinner!”

'She', you would later find out, was Charlotte. And 'him', was Charlotte’s boyfriend. He has a name, but you've fallen into the habit of referring to him by his title and it's too late now.

“Yoshi,” you ask, not for the first time, “why am I here?”

Yoshi sets down the fourth plate, waving a hand. “Because you can keep me from strangling her.”

It’s far more likely that it’ll be the other way around, which you feel compelled to point out. “She likes you,” Yoshi says, as if that explains anything. Or was even remotely true. 

But it’s too late, the doorbell rings and you are an unwilling player in the epic drama of the Yoshidas. 

Charlotte’s Boyfriend, it turns out, is called Matthew. He’s an accountant. He plays the piano. He’s quiet and lets Charlotte do most of the talking, but when push comes to shove all he has to do is say her name softly and she subsides. In fact he kind of reminds you of – 

You stop that thought right there.

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

You try your best to get along with Yoshi’s girlfriends, boyfriends and that one time with a pre-op transsexual. You really liked the transsexual, she’d team up with your Mario to kick Yoshi’s green dinosaur arse into the ground. And she was smart enough to drop Yoshi three months down the track when Yoshi started getting twitchy.

This one though, you don’t even bother trying. Or pretend to try.

“No,” you say, the moment the door closes behind her and her three-inch heels.

“No?” Yoshi repeats.

“Just....no.”

Yoshi looks confused. “But, she’s you, with a vagina.”

For some reason that annoys you, makes ugly little butterflies flutter around in your chest, pushing ever outwards until it’s difficult to breath. And you wish to hell and back you knew why. “And somehow that’s supposed to make me like her?” you snap.

It feels like the whole world freezes. Like it’s holding its breath, shocked by the vehemence you hear in your voice, feel in your veins. Yoshi does nothing, just stands there with his mouth parted, as if he was on the verge of saying something. And you know, when the world breathes again, that Yoshi will ask and you know, deep down in your bones, it’s not a conversation you want to have. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

You sigh, and force your shoulders to relax. “Look, I just don’t like her. But if she makes you happy, I’m happy.”

But you’re even happier when Yoshi dumps her the day after.

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

This isn’t the first time you’ve been dumped.

But this is the first time you feel guilty about it. Steve was, _is_ a good guy. The kind you took home to meet your parents, which you did. Your mother liked him, and your father clapped you on the shoulder, which from him may as well be a hug. 

You and Steve were a sure thing, you had thought.

But lying doesn’t come naturally to you, especially not when you’re lying to yourself, and so this is how it ends, in the middle of the hottest summer, in an apartment that feels like an oven, on a couch faded with time. Steve looks defeated, small, but he’s smiling wryly. “That’ll teach me to ask stupid questions,” he says, with just a trace of self-deprecation.

You think you should probably be sorry. But all you are is tired. Tired of lying and pretending. And tired of feeling, because that’s what got you into trouble in the first place. “I’m sorry,” you say anyway. 

Steve shrugs. “It’s all right,” he says, “I always knew where your priorities were. Family and Yoshi, then everyone else a distant second.”

It feels like a punch to the jaw, a dash of ice water to the body, when you hear it said out loud. But best of all, worst of all, it feels right. 

And that terrifies you.

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

You’re going to throw up. “I’m going to throw up.” 

Yoshi shoves a bucket under your face, and holds back your hair as your stomach rejects everything you’ve eaten today, which amounts to two crackers and a spoonful of chicken soup. “Hey, hey, it’s all right,” Yoshi murmurs. His hand is like a hot brand on your head, and you can only lean in with a pathetically grateful whimper. 

Everything aches, and nothing is warm enough, and the sheet is soaked in sweat. For the past two nights you catch only snippets of sleep, and through the haze of fever, you wonder whether Yoshi’s had any sleep either. Somehow, you don’t think so. You feel bad, but your stomach feels worse and before you know it you’re leaning over the bucket again.

“Sorry,” you groan as Yoshi helps you settle back into bed. “Had a hot date tonight, right?”

Yoshi’s blurry face shakes and you get the feeling he’s smiling at you. “Forty degrees C? Yeah I’d say you’re hot.”

Your muscles protest as you shake, and cough and laugh all at the same time. “Asshole,” you mutter.

“Yep,” Yoshi agrees cheerfully, “but I’m your asshole.”

His hand is in your hair again, and his thumb is moving around in perfect, warm, soothing circles. You tilt your head further into the touch as you murmur, “boyfriend’s gonna be pissed.” One year anniversary or something, your addled brain reminds you. “Hos before bros or somethin’.’” The words are slurred beyond salvage but you know Yoshi understands. 

You hear Yoshi sigh, and feel him move in closer, until your entire world is just Yoshi. Yoshi in his pale blue shirt, with his messy hair. Yoshi who radiates so much warmth you want to bury yourself against him. Yoshi who kisses your forehead with chapped lips. “C’mon, Cam,” he says softly, “you know you’re always gonna be first.”

 

~ * ~ * ~

It’s become something of a tradition, the kidnapping thing.

So much of a tradition that your boss and co-workers barely raise an eyebrow when Yoshi, once again, charms his way past the secretary and leisurely strolls to your desk. He even waves at a few of your colleagues, all of whom smile back absolutely charmed. “Yoshi, no” you say the moment he arrives, “I have a million things to do.”

“Cam, yes,” he retorts, “you only have one thing to do and that’s come with me.”

“Yoshi.”

“Cam.” He leans against the edge of your desk, all long limbs and pale skin. “I already asked Sarah.”

On cue, your boss leans out of her office, and yells across the floor, “Permission grant, soldier. Go have some fun!”

Not much you can say to that. And going by the widening of Yoshi’s grin, he knows it too. Smug little prick. 

He takes you to the beach, of course, and he gets the ice cream; chocolate for you, strawberries for him. 

“So, how’s it feel to have another zero under your belt?” Yoshi asks when the two of you are sitting on some sand-covered bench, watching idiots throw themselves at insanely tall waves.

“Awesome,” you answer dryly. 

Yoshi bumps your shoulder with his, and he’s laughing as he says, “hey, remember what you said at your twenty-first?”

“I said a lot of things.” Most of it fuelled by alcohol.

“You said that if we were still single by the time we turn sixty we should just hook up.” Yoshi isn’t looking at you as he says this, but your Yoshi sense is telling you he’s listening intently for your answer. 

You almost choke on your ice cream. This is straying far too close to the things you don’t think about. “Um, yeah, so what?”

“So, what about it?” Yoshi does meet your eyes then, and you hate that he looks so damn calm as he kicks your entire world into chaos with four little words.

With your throat dry and your insides in knots, you laugh. “C’mon, Yoshi, We’re only thirty, giving up already?”

Yoshi shrugs as he licks at his ice cream with neat little passes of his tongue. “Giving up? Nah.” He smiles at you. Something small and hopeful flutters in your chest. “Giving in though? Maybe.”

“Giving in?” you echo. Your voice cracks on the second word, and you can see Yoshi bite down on a blossoming grin. Bastard.

“Yeah. I figure, we’re kind of inevitable, you know,” he says, and it sounds so easy. All that worry, all those sleepless nights, all that jealousy, washed away by Yoshi’s words and Yoshi’s smiles. And you’ve never wanted to punch him more. Loved him more.

Then, “You’re totally the princess Leia to my Han Solo.”

Okay, yeah, you just want to punch him. “You are a mood killer, Scott Yoshida,” you say sternly. “And like hell Han Solo. You’re definitely Anakin Skywalker.”

Yoshi squawks, and flails and threatens to throw your Zelda games down the trash. You promise him a blow job if he doesn’t, which renders Yoshi speechless, and you think this whole giving in thing is the best idea Yoshi has ever had.


End file.
